Mitigating Circumstances
by Rube
Summary: “Will’s never in trouble. Will’s the speech-writer. Will generally spends his days making coffee and doing things to keep himself out of trouble. Trouble has to put the Secret Service out to find Will. So would you mind telling me why Will is in tro


Title: Mitigating Circumstances  
Author: Rube ( rube@undevout.com / )  
Rating: R  
Fandom: The West Wing  
Summary: "Will? How is Will in trouble? Will's never in trouble. Will's the speech-writer. Will generally spends his days making coffee and doing things to keep himself out of trouble. Trouble has to put the Secret Service out to find Will. So would you mind telling me _why_ Will is in trouble?"  
Notes: I have no idea where this came from, and I apologize for the extremely over-used plot device. And yes I'm aware of the backwards way it was written; it's not a linear sequenced as an episode, although it's paced like one.  
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters used herein and make no profit from said usage. Chapter One "What am I supposed to tell them?" C.J. looked at an utter loss, the file still gripped in her hand so tightly her knuckles were turning white. Toby stopped, considered. "Tell them… tell them there are mitigating circumstances. That it's well under way to being settled." He turned back around and headed down the hall, easily ignoring C.J.'s confused muttering of 'mitigating circumstances?' --- Three raps on Leo's desk, and he distractedly eyed C.J. from over a copy of The Wall Street Journal. "I wanted to know if I've got the go-ahead on this," she said plainly, all business and glasses perched low on her nose, and suddenly she spotted the paper, and then it's the closest thing to a laugh anyone has ever heard C.J. give when under pressure. "I didn't know you read The Wall." "I don't." He put it down, set a coaster on top of it. "Research." She cocked an eyebrow. "Research? Why, are you being hoodwinked into investing your savings? I know a few -" "College friend of mine coming," Leo explained, standing. "He's made it his life's work to make me feel like a deprived loser, what with my lack of a 401K and various shares in IBM. And anyway, I don't really have savings." "You don't need a 401K," C.J. said patronizingly. "You work for the president." "Everyone needs a 401K," Leo explained, gently grabbing her elbow and leading her out to the hall. "Especially ex-White House staff." "You're not –" "Hell, I think even Clinton has a 401K," Leo mused. "Although I don't see why he'd need it, Hilary's still bringing home the proverbial bread." "He didn't retire. I thought he was teaching classes at Yale? Maybe it was Harvard?" She seamlessly maneuvered her elbow out of Leo's grasp. He didn't even notice he was still clutching it. "No, it was a state university in New York or something like that, and I think it was Gore. He doesn't count." "What do you mean he doesn't count? He was the vice president, I think that counts." "Not technically, no, and let's stop talking about this before –" "He counts! You said 'ex-White House staff,' you didn't say 'ex-presidents only,' Leo. So by deduction he counts." Leo shrugged. "All right, he counts." "You don't believe me. You definitely just skirted the issue, and I want to know why. Stop skirting the issue." "What's the issue?" "Your friend. IBM. The Wall." "You forgot the 401K." "Yeah. Skirting." He didn't say anything, but she was still going. "Did you take special classes in that? Eluding Simple Conversation 101?" "I should ask the president if he has a 401K," Leo mused. "Leo." Now she was irritated. They stopped walking, C.J. glowering, Leo's expression a blank, impenetrable slate. "Do I have your go-ahead?" "You don't need my go-ahead for this. You've got Toby's go-ahead, you've got Josh's go-ahead, you've got the president's go-ahead, and most importantly, you've got Will Bailey's go-ahead," he finished. C.J. nodded once, brisk and back on track. "So go ahead." Neither laughed at his little joke. C.J. took off down the hall, already gearing up for the sea of questions. "The president doesn't have a 401K," she called out, not even looking over her shoulder. Leo started after her, eyes on the line of her back until she went through a door. Then he went back to his office, sat down in his chair, and picked up The Wall Street Journal. --- When C.J. got there, everyone privy to inter-White House affairs was there already, either nervously tapping their fingers on the arm of the couch (Josh), pacing by the desk (Toby), or downing cups of coffee, one after the other (Will). "So," she said, and everyone looked at her in a way that let her know that something was wrong. "Why're we here?" "We have a problem," Toby announced. Josh laughed nervously. "Way to mince words." "Yeah, well. You don't mince words. You mince beef." "I'll write that one down," Josh responded, sounding a place-put and a little wary. "We have a problem?" C.J. forged on. "Is that like an insect problem, or a nuclear war problem?" "It's a problem," Toby said shortly, and he stopped pacing to glare at Will, which gave her a suspicion but she didn't know of what. She sat down next to Josh, who smoothed his tie and shifted position. Getting ready to speak. Oh boy. "Will's in trouble." "Will? How is Will in trouble? Will's never in trouble. Will's the speech-writer. Will generally spends his days making coffee and doing things to keep himself out of trouble. Trouble has to put the Secret Service out to find Will. So would you mind telling me _why_ Will is in trouble?" "I slept with this girl. And now she's dead." Will managed to say this between his fifth and sixth cup of coffee. C.J. thought she might cry, if she was the crying sort of person. Instead she laughed. "Um, what?" "Will –" "I didn't mean, 'um, what.' I admit that saying 'um, what' was horribly inappropriate and not a little ridiculous, considering the situation, but I couldn't formulate the words. What the hell – no, I like fuck better – what the fuck is going on here and why are we having a meeting about it?" Josh shifted, Will poured himself another cup of coffee, and not even Toby answered her. C.J. felt like she was in the middle of a bad sit-com. "Will?" "I slept with this girl. Nancy. She was interviewing to be staffed as… as an intern. Really more of a gofer, though. I slept with her, and now she's dead, and I think I was the last person to see her." Will was definitely the crying type, but he didn't, and C.J. took a moment to admire that. "She was murdered?" "She was twenty-five, so unless she had leukemia or Lou Garret's Disease, yes, she was murdered," Toby snapped. "Toby, this is not the time to be funny." "I'm not funny." "We're sure she didn't kill herself?" C.J. looked over at Josh, and idea striking her. "Was she denied the position? If she was denied the position after sleeping with Will, she might have been depressed, and -" "She didn't know if she had the job or didn't have the job yet. It was in the works," Toby said. "She was going to find out on Wednesday," Will whispered. C.J. wasn't going to discount the possibility of suicide so early in the game. "Still. We're _positive_ that she was murdered?" "Her throat was slit. She was raped. They found her in her apartment, handcuffed to her four-poster bed." C.J. put her shaking hand to her forehead and cursed. "Were there any fluids found on the body?" "Some." "Were they Will's?" "They're still in the lab. We're waiting for the call." Will choked on his sip of coffee and had to spit it back into the cup. "Oh God." Nothing was coming to her. Nothing. "Do we have a plan? Does the vice president know? Does the president know?" "The president doesn't need to know," Josh broke in, the first words he'd spoken in a long while. "He will need to know when we get the results and determine how to move forward." "You mean when we collectively determine if one of our own is a murdering psychopath?" Toby asked harshly, pacing again. "Not exactly," Josh corrected. "We don't know enough yet." C.J. sucked in a deep breath, stood. "Let me know when you do know enough. I'm going to go cancel my dinner plans." 


End file.
